Try the new beta update!

It should be faster than previous versions, add proper support for all kinds of filenames with special characters and there’s new functionality, too. I’ve made it possible to filter your movie library by watched and unwatched movies from the drop-down menu in the menu bar, and you can now also use filter by genres.

I’ve also enabled the Watchlist section of the application. It currently supports movies, and I will add support for TV shows at a later point in time.

When is Mizuu going out of beta?I’m happy to say that we’re getting close to the release of a final version.

I’ve soon implemented all the stuff I wanted (and more) for the next major release of Mizuu, and I can’t wait for it to be completed!

You might have noticed that I’ve been putting more time into development lately. I’ve decided to focus more on Mizuu and cut down on my courses at university, so I have fewer courses and more spare time on my hands. Sadly, I’ve just lost my part time job today because the company went bankrupt, but the good news is obviously that it means I’ll have even more time for developing. At least until I get a new job.

I think it’s quite important that I don’t release Mizuu until it’s more or less stable. The latest beta version seems to be remarkably stable – there’s currently just one unresolved crash report in the developer console at Google Play, and I sadly can’t reproduce it myself.

When I do release the final version, I might still keep the beta versions around on Google Play or perhaps as an opt-in on this site. It’d be great to get the early feedback and reports on any potential bugs. Let me know what you think.

The release version will continue to be available as a a paid application and a free version with subtle ads in the slide-in menu. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone do this kind of advertising in their mobile apps before, but I think it works very well and it’s quite unobtrusive.

Anyway – a bit of a rant, but I just wanted to keep you guys updated on what’s happening. Thanks a lot for believing in the project!

Hey Michell, speaking about your job: perhaps this is not so much bad news but kismet only.
I am sure someone/thing just wants to tell you to switch over to making money via the appstore. I am looking forward to spend money on your great software!
😉

Sorry to inform you, also the last version 30012013_3 does NOT read folders or filenames with diacritic characters.
Tryed updated version, does not work. Tryed to deinstall and reinstall, also does not work.
I don’t think that this behaviour is due to errors in TheMovieDatabase, because it does not work also on my own movies with diacritic characters in folder name, which of course are not in TheMovieDatabase.
Please fix if possible.

That makes no sense. Everything is working at my end, and I’ve had reports from other people saying that it’s working now.

The filenames are being converted to UTF-8, which both databases pick up without any issues. Having said that, I don’t think I’m converting foldernames to UTF-8, in case the look-up fails based on the filename.

I’ll have to postpone my promise a bit. I won’t have access to my development PC for the next few days, and haven’t yet implemented the changes to reading of XML files, but I’d like to get feedback on some other stuff, so I’ve uploaded a new version just now that doesn’t change anything in terms of updating with XML files. It should work just fine with custom cover art and backdrops, though, as long as they’re named according to the guidelines.

blade005
on January 31, 2013 at 8:26 pm

Great work. Any chance that the MARK AS WATCHED selection that is in Movies would be available for TV episodes as well? Would be nice to have watched episodes either marked or grayed out when seeking. Or, maybe you have plans to integrate with something like Trakt.com. Either way, thanks for the great media solution.

Can we get a quick clarification on REMOVE SEASON and REMOVE EPISODE options in TV section? Remove from library and will not appear in future library refreshes? Would library have to be cleared on update if you wanted it restored at a later date?

It just removes the season / episode from the library. If you update again, they’ll be back. I’m going to add an “ignore list” for files that Mizuu shouldn’t scan / add to the library, and I want to make that work with removal of seasons and episodes.

Hey Michell, I was wondering if you could implement a tap and hold menu for movies and tv series in thumbnail view. So if I tap and hold on a movie in thumbnail view the bar at the top is replaced by perhaps the one you see on the movie overview

This beta version is great, it really adds the features that I wanted. I still miss the mark as watched for tv shows, but I’ve read that you are working on it. It isn’t clear for me what happens when I mark a movie as watched, as I don’t see any obvious change, anyway, I just remove a watched movie from the library.

But for TV shows I hope you will opt in for something like mvideoplayer has: a colored bar or icon clearly visible next to each episode.

Another thing that I miss is the dvd order for tv shows (I’ve mailed you sometime ago about this). For example I cannot use Mizuu to index Seinfeld because the order of some episodes is wrong (I have the DVDRip version). Is still not a big deal, but I can’t remember the last episode I watched unless I look for it’s filename to find the correct title. Hopefully the mark as watched for tv shows will help me.

I had an issue with changing the cover art from some movies. Then I found out that mizuu was using an image with the same name as the movie from within the movie folder, even if I choose to download another one. You should mention this somewhere, the old mizuu was using the covert art that I choose.

I think you fixed the grouping with two parts/cds which was missing in the previous beta. Now the first part starts playing instead of manually choosing the desired part like in the original version.

And finally, maybe you could bring back the welcome screen and also keep the setting to manually choose the starting screen.

Yep, working on the TV show stuff right now actually. It involved database restructuring, but I’ve done that now, so it should hopefully work for anyone upgrading to the next version. It basically means that I can begin adding episode-specific features, like marking as watched and editing of episode details.

How do you propose I add the DVD order feature?

The old version of Mizuu did the exact same thing regarding custom cover art, and it’s really the only thing that makes sense. If you’ve got a custom cover art image in the same folder, then there’s obviously a reason for it. Custom movie information will always be preferred if it’s available.

I’m not totally sure if movie parts / cds is fully working yet. It’s on my to-do list, so I’ll make sure that it works at a later point before releasing the final version.

Regarding the dvd order, my suggestion is to look for the “dvdrip” keyword in the filename. For example for a filename like “seinfeld.s01e01.dvdrip.avi” pull the info using the “dvd order”. I don’t know if thetvdb.com xml api have options for this (I see the order can be changed from the web interface). Or how convenient is it for you, but I guess is the simplest option.

The data is available (for some shows). I was just wondering how it should be implemented. I don’t see any good way of doing it. It’s practically impossible to know if it should search based on the TV air order or DVD order. I’m not sure if I can add an option for this, as it’s something that’d have to be done at a show basis rather than global basis.

Ok, keep it as a suggestion for any future versions. The use of “dvdrip” as a standard keyword in naming convention was my only idea. As I said, I only needed for one show so far, don’t know about other users.

The welcome screen (with the four icons as in the old version) was nice for me because I use Mizuu on an Android stick (mk802) connected to my TV. I could set it to auto start Mizuu at boot and that way I get a nice interface to choose the media I want to watch. Well it’s the same thing eventually without the welcome screen, no big deal I guess.

I know this is an old post, but i cannot find any other discussion about DVD order. Most of the TV database APIs, such as the thetvdb, have an option for you to do the fetch using DVD order or tv aired order. All of my tv show files are from DVD rips, because I actually purchased the series and ripped them myself, unlike some other people that are downloading them illegally in the aired order. Therefore almost all of my TV shows are completely out of order and mis-named. This could be implemented on a show by show basis using the drop-down settings you currently have in the Overview tab of a TV Show, right along with the “Identify Show” option you currently have. If the choice is changed from one to the other you could do an immediate fetch in that particilar show to update with the new order. I purchased Mizuu today without realizing I can’t even use it without that option. As you no longer offer a free version to test with, you need to let people know your app lacks this feature so we don’t feel ripped off.

The app take 2,3 seconds to display covers when I browse movies in landscape mode.
And I guess there is a time out somewhere in the app because I receive often the “wait,…, stop” message dialog. I can continue to browse movie if I select the Wait option.

I’ve never had issues with HW decoding of video files over network. In MX player, there’s a setting to enable HW decoding with network files, and Dice Player – which I’m using with the libffmpeg plugin – has no issues either and is capable of playing all formats, both video and sound, with hardware decoding as well.

Thanks a lot for your answer! I just started getting an issue when using Mizuu without an internet connection. I load up the app and it flashes “No internet connection.” at the bottom of the screen. Then, at random intervals, it’ll quickly close and open the app, not allowing for any key presses to be made. If I force quit the app via the Settings menu, it’ll start working again. This only happens though when I’m not using an internet connection, and I’ve tried checking off the “Check required” option in the settings menu. Any ideas as to what can be causing this?

Not sure at this moment. Checking all things related to internet connection is one of the last things on my to-do list. Can’t really do that until everything else works (with a connection). I’ll keep it in mind though.

Hi,
I am trying the new version and is very fast, I see that Genres are implemented, but I am not sure how they work, as I understand Mizuu gets the info from themoviedb.org rigth? so why if a movie (lets say The last starfighter) is marked (in the web) as part of the action, adventure, family, science fiction genres, but if I select Action or adventure or any of the assigned genres it doesnt show, but it instead shows in the “AccionAventuraCiencia Ficcion” (all in spanish) genre, also when I click in the genres option, it shows “a lot” of “combined” genres just like the one in spanish like “ActionComedyCrime” or “ActionDramaFamily” genres.
And since I am already causing so much trouble … would it be possible that when I click in Genres and the dropdown appears, make it that if I click, lets say “b” it goes to the first genre starting with a “b”, this is because it show “a lot” of genres, and if I want to go to “family” I have to scroll down like 100 other genres just to get to the first “f”.

Genres are comma-separated in Mizuu, and that’s how it downloads things from the movie database by default. If you’re experiencing an issue with that, then it’s most likely because you’ve edited the genres field for one or several movies, and neglected to use commas to separate each genre. There’s really nothing I can do about that.

Ok, so genres don’t come from the themoviedb.org site? Just from the genres especified in my movies?
I haven’t so far edited nothing of the info that mizuu gets for the movies, I will try deleting and re-scanning my collection!
Best Regards

Genres are downloaded from the database website, but they’re downloaded one by one. Mizuu puts them together like “Genre 1, Genre 2, Genre 3 […]”. It really shouldn’t be able to fail unless there’s been some tinkering with the database manually.